The present invention is directed to a method and apparatus for stranding conductors, such as electrical and/or optical, with a changing lay direction to form SZ-stranding, said method and apparatus utilizes an elongated cylindrical member operated with changing rotational directions, which member is wrapped by the conductors that are supplied to a stranding disk at an end of the member.
It is known to strand electrical and/or optical conductors with what are referred to as "tube stores", wherein a cylindrical, tubular member is utilized and onto which member the light waveguides are stranded by a stranding disk connected to this tubular member. An example of such a device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,615,168, whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference thereto, and by EP 0 158 730. The tubes of these devices have their ends seated for easy rotation and are placed into rotation with changing rotational sense or direction via appropriate drive devices. The disadvantage in this known procedure is the extremely limited number of lays that can lie between two reversing points in the finished product. The frictional forces between the tube store, on the one hand and the outside wall of the conductors on the other hand will become too high given a high number of lays. This high frictional force is responsible because of the angles of wrap add up.
Care must also be exercised in these known tube stores to see that no vibrations or radial excursions occur in the tube store. In addition, the employment of tubes having a greater length is problematical, and for the reasons, intermediate supports in addition to the end bearing have been provided. However, assuming that a corresponding guide disk for the leads is provided in the region of the support and, thus, results therein that the leads must be lifted off from the surface of the tube in this region.